100 years ago today: James B. Duke’s Southern Power Co., forerunner of Duke Power Co., brings electricity to Durham. Among the bedazzled is a reporter for the Durham Recorder: “From the water driven generators on the Rocky Creek below Great Falls, S.C., the mysterious energy flashed over the lines or tower to tower, over hill […]

“At the same time [James B.] Duke was working to have the Bonsack [cigarette-making] machine perfected, he was installing a print shop in his Durham factory that could employ color lithography…. “Cards freely distributed with each pack of Cameo, Crosscut or Duke’s Best varied from the educational (flags and stamps of foreign countries) to the […]

“[James B.] Duke’s only failure came when he attempted to integrate the cigar industry into his increasingly extensive fold. Cigars, he found, fit poorly with his system of mechanization, standardization and national marketing…. Production of cigars would remain labor intensive, skilled work; they continued to be distributed in small quantities to specialized dealers…. “The cigar […]

“A distinguished company of U. S. educators traveled last week to a long clearing in a fragrant pine forest in North Carolina. There stood the most prodigious new educational project in the land this century — Duke University, now nearly complete though little grass yet grows on its sandy campus, no ivy on its neo-Gothic […]